


Illuminated In Gold

by GenerallyHuxurious (GallifreyanOmnishambles)



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Cutting, Emperor Hux, Emperor Kylo Ren, From Sex to Love, Hux is Not Nice, Inappropriate Use of the Force, Kylo Ren is Not Nice, Light Masochism, M/M, Magical Tattoos, Major Character Injury, Marking, Masturbation, Masturbation in Shower, Mental Link, Mild Blood, Minor Character Death, Misuse of the Force, Painplay, Scars, Tattoos, That's Not How The Force Works
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-27
Updated: 2017-06-27
Packaged: 2018-11-19 21:01:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11321661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GallifreyanOmnishambles/pseuds/GenerallyHuxurious
Summary: During an argument Kylo accidentally cuts Hux with the Force. It's only a little wound, barely an inch long, but somehow it changes everything...Because Atlin Merrick wanted a tattoo fic and I couldn't resist.





	Illuminated In Gold

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AtlinMerrick](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AtlinMerrick/gifts).



It began with a half inch cut on the inside of the General’s wrist.

It began with bickering and insults, as so much between them had begun, but it changed more than they realised.

He'd been teasing Kylo on the bridge with words spoken in the privacy of their own heads so that the rest of the crew couldn't hear them. Or Hux would have called it teasing. His tone was far too peevish and vicious. That was how they spoke to one another then. Hatefucking had slowly turned to barely amiable colleagues with benefits, but there was too much stress and friction between them for anything kinder.

_ You're a beast, Ren.  _ Hux thought.  _ A blunt instrument. It's a cock, not a battering ram. How you expect me to sit through meetings like this I don't know. You even fucking bit… _

_ I thought you liked it.  _ Kylo replied sullenly.  _ You should have said. _

Hux might have noticed the hurt in his words if they were kind of people who ever acknowledged their pain to the world.

_ I do, but there are limits, Ren. There isn't an inch of my ass that isn't bruised black and blue.  _ Hux shifted uncomfortable as they circuited the bridge, desperately trying to ease the sting of the bite marks between his thighs. He’d give in eventually and apply the bacta patches he kept in his desk of just this reason, but he would stubbornly resist for an hour or two. 

_ There's no subtlety to you.  _ He continued.  _ You're an explosive round in an operating theatre. An aerial bombardment where a single sniper will do. _

_ Says the man who destroyed the Hosnian System just to take out the Senate. _

Hux stopped in his tracks and instantly regretted it. He winced internally at the pain radiating through his skin, but he could see in Ren’s visor that his outward reaction was limited to a twitch of distaste around the nose. Good. There was no use in showing weakness.

_ That was proportional to the message that needed to be sent. And besides, you know as well as I do that Snoke was the one who chose to the destroy the system and not not just the planet. I should sincerely hope that Snoke hasn’t given you orders regarding what we do in private.  _

He felt his lips twitch in depraved humour and ignored the discomforted curl of Ren’s shoulders. 

_ If Snoke _ **_has_ ** _ ordered you to fuck me to death, _ he continued foolishly, _ then I’d rather you did it all at once. There’s no dignity in a death by a thousand cuts. _

Something happened.

The impression his mind received was that Kylo had lashed out and struck him. But his eyes and his nerves told the Knight had not moved. 

They stared at each other in silence for a beat until a Lieutenant called their attention to a navigational issue. 

As the man spoke Hux found him distracted by an odd tingling, itching sensation on his wrist and a growing dampness at the cuff of his glove. Ren seemed to drag the conversation out, asking unnecessary questions and musing on calculations that would have been better left to the navigators themselves. It was deliberate and Hux felt a growing urge to retaliate, though he didn’t know how.

By the time they were left in peace again he’d almost forgotten the issue. Until he reached into his pocket for a stylus and felt a sharp sting radiate through his skin.

He tried to be subtle in rolling back the cuff of his uniform. 

Ren was staring out of the viewports, apparently fascinated with the view, but Hux knew better than to trust him.

There was a cut on his wrist- not deep though it had bled profusely- half an inch long and forming a line between two of his freckles.

Hux had always hated the marks that peppered his skin like a fall of golden brown snow. He knew Ren had a perverse fondness for them, but their distribution only seemed designed to highlight his failings. They were darkest across his narrow shoulders, his delicate limbs, the ever present curve of his belly. He didn’t want to think about them.

As he studied the wound a second line appeared across his flesh, joining with the first to form the letter Resh. 

_ You say I have no subtlety… _ Ren began.

_ Fucking branding me with your initials is hardly subtle! Remove it. _

When he turned to look at him Ren’s visor was just as blank as Hux knew the expression underneath would be.  _ Well? _

_ I don’t know how. _

Hux hissed through his teeth in disgust, drawing the eyes of several crew members. With a curl of his lip he turned and stalked off the bridge in search of bacta and distance from the idiot in front of him.

He didn’t see Ren again before he left on his next mission. 

He didn’t speak to him again until the Knights returned him a month later, on a stretcher.

He’d been angry at first- that Ren had dared try to claim him, that Ren had thought that Hux’ body was his own to alter. 

But Hux had been distracted again almost the instant he left bridge, so he hadn’t found the bacta he’d sought. As the shift wore on and he was forced to walk half the length of the ship he’d found time to apply the necessary patches to his thighs, but he forgot entirely about his wrist. 

He forgot it until the evening, when the heat of his real water shower opened the wound as he lazily masturbated against the tile. 

Hux would never admit to missing Ren, certainly not so soon. No, the sharp sting that accompanied every slow twist of his wrist was merely a thrilling little counterpoint to the pleasure, a extra layer of sensation. The bites on his thighs were already faded thanks to the patches, while the ache from the stretching and abuse of his ass had yet to ease enough to be pleasant. But the sting at his wrist was just enough to distract from the other discomfort. 

It felt a little like Kylo was with him, guiding the stroke of his fingers. If he moved too fast or too sharply the cut opened more so he instinctively limited himself to stay on the right side of pleasure. 

The infliction of pain had never entirely appealed to him. He’d often scratched at his own palms in a twisted form of stress relief, but he had to admit there was something oddly thrilling about what he did with Kylo. The hand shaped bruises and livid bites certainly made his cock twitch.

But this was another level- he’d instigated this. It wasn’t an injury Kylo had thoughtlessly inflicted because he lacked control. This was a deliberate symbol of the control he could possess if only he had reason to try.

Hux thumbed at the head of his cock, spreading precome over the silky skin while his mind showed him an image of Ren improved. All the things Kylo could do if he just worked for it. No more outbursts, no more unnecessary destruction. 

Instead there would be perfect beautiful control. No more chaos in his wake. 

Hux imagined Ren dispatching their enemies as Hux might have done if he had the Force. Cold elegant efficiency and deaths so subtle that the Resistance might never even realise there had been an attack at all. Why choke a man with your whole hand when simply closing an artery would do it? Why tear apart a ship when disrupting a circuit or two would bring it tumbling out of the sky all the same?

An image formed in his mind of Kylo laying him out across the bed and recording his deeds across his flesh like a living ledger. Hux had never once imagined such a thing before but now that he had it spoke to some hidden part of his soul. 

To be marked, permanently, with a record of such power...

He came with a groan. Splatters of cum mixed with the pale red blood still oozing from his wrist. Just for a second before the shower washed it all away, but it was oddly beautiful all the same.

Hux worried at the wound through the next shift, and repeated his actions in the shower that night, half curious whether it was only a passing fancy. To his relief he found it just as satisfying as before. 

But it didn’t last. His body healed, for all that he disrupted the process, and within a week he was left with nothing but a pale pink scar. 

By the time he was informed of Ren’s return even that was lost. Hux had delicate skin, but the cut was so shallow it had vanished without a trace. He knew where it had been but no one else could see it.

That felt like a uncomfortable metaphor as he stood at the foot of Ren’s bed in medical, watching the droids trying to save his life. 

He’d thought about Ren more in the last month than perhaps he’d ever thought about him while he was physically present. 

Hux had not, until this extended absence, had any reason to consider the nature of their arrangement. He did not call it a relationship. They had never negotiated terms so formal as that. But they had fallen into habits that he had not consciously noticed. 

When he was on ship Ren was a daily feature in Hux’ quarters. Not necessarily always at night. Some days he joined Hux for his morning shower and exercise routine, replacing calisthenics with something much more pleasurable. Or else Ren came to him during lunch, urging him to eat even while he fucked him across the desk. 

Hux had somehow never noticed that until now. He’d have always believed that Kylo was just using him for his own release, but distance had shown him how much more was involved.

It was the nights where Kylo seemed to do the most for him. He was always there when Hux had a need. When insomnia had tormented Hux to near insanity and Ren selflessly endured hours of slow languid riding until Hux exhausted himself, or else when the pressures of command would not ease until Ren tore him apart and overstimulation sent his brain someplace quiet. 

Until now Hux hadn’t really understood how much he relied on it. And how much he missed it when it was absent. 

The threat that it might end completely, and Hux would be left with nothing was entirely new to his perception. He hated it. 

Ren had almost died countless times before. Hux had personally dragged him from the snow as Starkiller folded up around them. But it hadn’t mattered then. 

Or perhaps it had matter but Hux simply hadn’t appreciated the danger. 

He stood at the foot of the bed- his body held at a rigid form of parade rest- for eight hours. 

He waited in silence while the droids worked. While muscle and sinew and flesh were drawn together. While shattered joints were replaced with ceramic and steel. While Ren slept a brief recovery before he was woken to be transferred to the tank.

_ Hux?  _ The question was so quiet the General half thought he’d imagined it forming in his mind. 

He saw Ren’s eyes try to open beneath the bruising as the droid hauled him upright. He almost moved to help, as if his skinny frame could be any assistance to a pair of half ton droids. 

_ I’m here.  _ He replied in tones he hoped would be reassuring.

_ I know. I felt your energy. It… it helped. Don’t leave me. _

_ You’re going to be suspended in bacta, Ren. You’ll soon be high as a kite and have no need of me at all. _

_ You don’t know that. You don’t know what I need.  _

Hux rubbed his wrist in discomfort. _ I can’t stay in medical for a week to watch you sleep. You know that.  _

_ Then give me something I can keep with me in there. I’ll give you something in return. _

The droids had stopped and from the pained whirring of servos it was not by their own volition. Rolling his eyes Hux reached for his collar. 

_ Stop that!  _ He thought while exhausted fingers worked his dogtags from his uniform.  _ I’ll not have you destroying the machines that are meant to help you.  _

The first step out of his long held posture was disorientating but Hux forced himself not to stumble. He slipped the chain around Kylo’s neck, thankful that it was long enough not to catch on the open wounds that marred his already scarred face. 

Kylo turned his head at the last moment and pressed as kiss to the sliver of skin left exposed between Hux’ sleeve and glove. It tingled and burned for a moment. Then the contact was gone.

They held eye contact as Kylo sank into the tank but with the first breath through the mask he drifted out of consciousness again.

Hux didn’t look at his wrist until he was back in his quarters at the end of his shift. 

He was half sure that Kylo had recut the Resh. He’d developed such a conditioned response to that wound that he feared even looking at it would cause him to become hard right there on the bridge. There were somethings his dignity would not let him risk. 

He needn’t have worried.

Directly above his pulse point and seemingly etched in gold, was the stylised outline of a crystal. It was organic, a crystal formed naturally, not a gemstone cut or embellished by living hands, but it was still beautiful. Hux had no idea how it had been achieved.

He ran his thumb over it. It felt like healed scar tissue, soft with no indication of anything beneath the surface. He pressed down.

Pain and pleasure ran through him like lightning dancing through a planet’s atmosphere. He felt thrilled. He felt warm. He felt… valued. No treasured.

He sat back, breathing heavily with his arm held out in front of him like it might bite. 

Hux had never felt like that before. It was alien to him. 

Except it wasn’t. 

It felt like the mirror image of what he’d realised he felt for Kylo over the last few weeks. 

Heat spread steadily through his veins. He felt himself begin to stiffen in the confines of his jodhpurs. 

He pressed again, running the pad of his thumb back and forth along the design. He felt half intoxicated, arousal mixing with something else in his blood as he scrambled back into the bed far enough to comfortably free his erection.

Phantom lips traced the line of his cheekbone as his fist worked over his length. Warm arms seemed to slip around his body stroking every inch of him as wordless reassurances poured into his brain.

Distantly he heard a rising beeping sound but he didn’t care about it. All he cared about was the sensations ghosting over his skin and the pleasure building in his gut. 

He bit his lip as his free hand gripped his wrist again and squeezed. Blood filled his mouth when he came. He could swear a tongue that wasn’t his own traced over the marks left behind by his teeth.

Hux stood by the bacta tank a week later, his wrist gripped loosely behind his back as he watched Kylo being hauled from the messy ooze. 

Ren was bacta-high, a grin splitting his face while he swayed between the droids that were trying to clean him.

_ You enjoyed my gift. _ It wasn’t a question.

_ I think you know that I did. _

_ Mmm… several times a day I think.  _ The grin turned smug and lascivious at that. Hux saw Kylo’s cock twitch a little between his thighs, and he thanked the stars that there were only droids present.  _ Did they tell you what it means? _

_ Who? _

_ My Knights. _

Hux chuckled slightly.  _ Your Knights have not spoken to me in twenty years, Ren, I doubt they would break their silence just to explain a masturbation aid. _

He saw Kylo’s expression sour for an instant before it was covered by the tunic the droids were tugging over his head. He instantly regretted his levity.

_ Is that all you think this is? _

_ No. _ He shook his head. _ No of course not. Ren, you almost died and I have heard nothing about what happened. Forgive me if I reach for humour in my attempt to cope. _

Kylo growled deep in his throat but said nothing else while he was dressed.

_ Come to my quarters,  _ Hux said when he could bear the silence no longer.  _ Come and tell me what happened.  _

Kylo only nodded.

The instant the door to corridor closed Kylo made it clear that he had no intention of talking. 

Between one breath and the next Hux found himself pinned to the wall, his tunic already open and his legs drawn up around Kylo’s hips. He nipped instinctively at the tongue already invading his mouth while his body pressed down against the hot length rutting against the cleft of his ass though his uniform. 

Everything happened at once in a baffling blur of conflicting sensations. Real hands and the phantom touch of the Force were everywhere at once, tugging at his clothes and squeezing at his flesh. More mouths than Hux had felt in his entire life licked and kissed and bit at every inch revealed as the fabric was pulled away. 

He would swear later that the space between the door closing and Ren having him stretched out naked on the bed was less than a second, but he was too overwhelmed at the time to consider it.

Ren had him on his back, his thighs spread wide around the Knight’s knees while one massive hand was already massaging at his hole. Kylo leant over him, Hux’ tattooed wrist held close to his mouth while Kylo laved over the design with his tongue. 

It felt amazing. It felt, not wrong, but… strange. He could feel Kylo’s tongue on his skin, but he could also feel his skin on his tongue. When that first fingertip penetrated him he felt both the stretch and the pressure around the digit. Kylo’s cock bobbed against his thigh and he felt the precome as if it dripped down his own length.

“Kylo, what is this?” He muttered aloud as the finger slipped deep enough to brush his prostate. His hips bucked up off the bed and Kylo’s went with them.

Kylo didn’t reply at first. He has panting and half frantic as he worked his fingers deeper, stretching Hux as swiftly as he dared. 

It was all Hux could do to cling to the sheets and fight back the pleasure rising through him.

As quickly as they’d appeared Kylo’s fingers vanished and Hux found himself hauled up the sheets to be impaled on Kylo’s cock. The fingers hadn’t been nearly enough. Hux writhed and sobbed against that fat length as he fought to adjust to the intrusion. 

Above him Kylo let out something like a shout of triumphant as he sank in to the root and held his hips in a vice like grip. 

The position- Kylo kneeling and Hux on his back- raised Hux’ hips above the level of his head. Which meant that when Hux looked up at Kylo from the pillows he saw his own torso stretched out before him. Too skinny hips, visible ribs, the small soft belly sitting in between. Kylo flexed inside him and Hux gasped at the shift of his stomach. Kylo was so deep he could almost see him from the outside. 

“Do you know what it was like?” Kylo asked, running his fingers over Hux’ belly as if searching for himself.

Hux hadn’t a clue what he was talking about.

“You insulted me, and I lashed out at you in anger. I intended to find a way to heal it, but then you refused to let it close. I could feel you when I concentrated on it. Feel you breathing, feel your heartbeat. But then you focused on it, focused on me, and poured so much raw power into the wound.”

“Power? I was jacking off!” 

“You think lust doesn’t have power? You think…” Kylo stopped himself with his tongue poised at another L sound.

Hux looked away, unable to maintain eye contact as a discomforting pressure began to build in his chest.

“As long as it stayed open, as long as I had made a mark on you, that you wanted to keep- I could feel you. But when it closed, when the scar began to heal…”

Kylo held out an arm to show Hux the soft flesh of his inner forearm. There were a dozen sets of three lines marching down his arm, the letter Herf marked over and over again. The letters changed colour as they progressed, shifting from the pale pink of scar tissue to the unnatural colours of tattoos. One set was raised more than the others and Hux felt sure there was metal embedded under the skin. The one closest to the elbow looked like Hux’ own mark.

“You were right, Hux. I needed to learn subtlety. I needed to learn control. I’d never had a compelling reason for it before.”

Hux rolled his eyes and flexed his thighs. Now that he was used to the stretch inside he was beginning to find the inaction frustrating. “Winning the war wasn’t enough?”

“I had no reason to think it would gain me anything.” Kylo paused and experimentally rolled his hips, making Hux groan. “You showed me the error in my thinking. I wanted to put it to the test. I remembered what you thought about small gestures having large consequences.”

Kylo caught up his wrist again and kissed the golden design.

“This was the crystal that powered Skywalker’s saber. A small change,” Kylo said while Hux writhed beneath him as a crack formed across the design, sending beautiful pain clear down to his toes, “the slightest disruption of its form, and the crystal could not hold in its casing. I destroyed his lightsaber with a thought. It wasn’t enough to kill him, but the loss of his other hand, and the ruin of his face, that was enough to distract his focus. I closed off his heart. Skywalker is gone. And I gift his fall to you.”

The kisses over his skin turned soothing as Kylo began to move in earnest. It felt wonderfully overwhelming, to feel the drag of the cock inside him with both his own nerves and Kylo’s. He hooked his ankles around Kylo’s back and arched to urge him deeper. 

His wrist was released. Kylo ran both hands up the length of his torso and dragged slowly back down, hauling Hux closer.

“Do you remember what you imagined?” Kylo asked, repeating the gesture while Hux groaned and clenched around him. “Being my living ledger? The proof all my deeds? Everything I could do with you to guide me? A little unfair, don’t you think?”

“What?” It was all Hux managed to say before pain rippled through him in a wave.

His stomach burned so he instinctively curled inward, only see five golden lines spreading up from the base of his cock and out towards his diaphragm. Kylo was still thrusting, his face screwed up in concentration as five swirling symbols formed along the edge of his ribcage.

Kylo reached up to run his thumbs across them, almost making Hux scream at the stimulation. Bright hot pleasure pain burned across every nerve. And then Kylo was folding forward, hauling Hux’ hips clear off the bed as he licked across one nipple. Pain flared under his tongue. 

Hux came with a gasp, his voice stolen as every sensation in both their bodies seemed to focus on his chest and rush outward. 

It felt like he would never stop coming, like a hand had reached into his body and flicked every switch to wring his body dry. He was screaming something to Kylo in the privacy of their minds but whether it was praise or curses he just didn’t know.

Slowly the ceiling came into focus, and then soft curls of Kylo’s hair at the edge of his vision. Kylo had become a heavy weight on top of him. For a long terrifying moment he thought perhaps he wasn’t even breathing. But with a groan that rumbled through through both their chests Kylo rolled away. 

Hux shuddered as the change in position let Kylo’s cock slip free, and more cum that Hux had expected poured from him onto the sheets. 

“M’sorry,” Kylo mumbled.

“What the fuck did you do?” Hux asked while he struggled to sit up. He stopped halfway, astonished. Both of his nipples stood pert and erect at the centre of sunburst designs that looked like nothing so much as the First Order symbol. Carefully he touched one and groaned low as his cock made a valiant attempt to fill again.

“Don’t, I’ll die,” Kylo said, propping himself up enough to see his work. “Just… gimme half an hour.”

Hux stared down at himself, studying the strange new markings. “I don’t understand.”

“I want you to be my ledger, but I thought your achievements deserved to be recorded too. Five planets; two suns- my Starkiller.”

Gentle fingers touched Hux’ face followed by soft lips when he finally looked up. 

“I felt everything you did.”

“Yes.”

“Will it work all the time, or only when I touch it? Only when we’re together?” 

Kylo shrugged. “I don’t know the details yet, we’ll have to live it and see.”

“I can cope with that.”

* * *

Hux was standing on the bridge when his forearm burned, and the symbol of Alderaan formed between his collarbones. Leia Organa was gone.

He was asleep when the burning wreckage of an X-Wing formed on his left calf. A minute later a shattered stormtrooper helmet joined it.

Planetary governments were thrown into chaos by the unexpected deaths of their leaders and Hux knew before the press or the war office as their crests flowed over his flesh in liquid gold. 

He was in a conference when he felt Kylo take himself in hand and murmur his name against the shower walls. 

That night Kylo almost crashed his shuttle when Hux returned the favour.

Hux was in the main docking bay when the scavenger Rey put her saber through Kylo’s shoulder. 

He fell screaming to the deck as nerves and sinew burned thousands of lightyears away. He’d never thought to ask again exactly what sensations might pass through such a connection. 

As the crew flocked around him in panic Hux clutched at his arm and focused on Kylo. 

There was no fear in his other half, only rage and pain. But rage always made Kylo foolish. 

She was young, and strong, and so much better able to fend off his attacks than Skywalker had been. Subtle tricks would not work here. A saber duel was the possible course. 

Hux remembered the last time Kylo had faced her like this. There would be no rescue from the snow this time. 

Kylo’s arm hung useless and he would forced to switch to his less dominant hand. 

_ No,  _ Hux thought,  _ no, don’t. _

Hux stood, his own healthy arm gripping a saber that existed at the other end of the galaxy. Rey might be strong, but she was alone, and together he and Kylo had the strength of two. 

The sensory input of what followed was far too much for him process, but seven minutes later another tattoo was forming across his skin.

The last of the Jedi was gone. 

The First Order had its victory.

It was then that Snoke called them into his presence at his own citadel, deliberately denying Kylo the chance to heal. Now that his servant had served his purpose, he could be disposed of with any such concerns for his well being. 

The old revenant did not survive the encounter. 

Seeing his lover lying broken before that throne made something snap inside the General, and was Hux who drove Ren’s saber though their master’s skull. 

No tattoo formed on his skin, at this- what should have been their greatest victory. 

He turned to Kylo, afraid that the infection and ruin in his arm had taken his life before they could win their freedom. Instead he found Kylo standing at peace, his arm amputated at the shoulder, and the stump capped with a gilded sunburst. A splash of gold shimmered at his temple, showing where the killing stroke had fallen

“My Emperor, isn’t it time that I became your ledger?” Kylo asked. “Someone should record your great deeds for all the ages.”

Hux shook his head and smiled, stepping lightly forward to press a kiss to beloved lips. “My Emperor, we are equals, let us live as such.”

His breathe shook a little, though he’d never admit it, when Kylo pulled him close. 

Pressed forehead-to-forehead he felt that now familiar sting spread out across his skin and around his scalp.

“No one can take this from us, but I’d like to see them try,” Kylo said with a smile, a golden circlet now tattooed across his brow. 

Hux knew without looking that he had one just the same. 

A ring might have been more traditional. But when had they ever been traditional?

**Author's Note:**

> There's art for this fic, come see it on [Tumblr...](https://crepeycrepeyspacewizard.tumblr.com/post/162329099059/illuminated-in-gold-by-generallyhuxurious-for)


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